North Side Baseball - Home Page

New to the Cubs:
Lendy Castillo - 52
David DeJesus - 9
Paul Maholm - 28
Anthony Rizzo - 44
Dave Sappelt - 17
Andy Sonnanstine - 21
Ian Stewart - 2
Chris Volstad - 32
Casey Weathers - 56
Travis Wood - 30

Changes:
Tony Campana - 1 (from 41)
Jeff Baker - 3 (from 28)
Blake DeWitt - 11 (from 9)
Matt Garza - 22 (from 17)


Manager Dale Sveum - 33
Bench coach Jamie Quirk - 8
Pitching coach Chris Bosio - 25
First base coach Dave McKay - 39

Full list including NRIs (Mather, Tolbert, Scales, Miller, Corpas, Jaramillo, Amezaga, Gonzalez, among others) here (yes, it's BCB, manage for now)

At least Sonnanstine won't be around long to keep Sosa's # locked up. And if Garza's here for awhile we won't run the risk of having Grace getting his number retired the same way Maddux did.

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Garza taking Prior's number. Hopefully next he takes Prior's 7.6 WAR and not his injury path.

Neither is likely, but Garza won't be posting a 7.6 WAR :/

Considering Garza is 29 and still pitching, I'm not too worried about the career injury path.

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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist.

Yeah, he's a pretty sure non-injury risk. It's still gonna be weird/depressing seeing our ace wearing 22.

Although, I guess I don't really care since I hope he will be traded soon.

I'm more worried about Garza following the Zambrano career path of being well above average until age 30, and then hitting a wall. And then soon after being bad at pitching.

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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist.

Which is a legitimate concern seeing as his WAR last year is the outlier in his career statistics, and I am not sure his value can really go anywhere but down. I don't want to jump at the first good offer we get, but I really hope Theo doesn't wait too long and Garza ends up losing a lot of value.

WAR in his full seasons:

2.9
3.1
1.6
5.0

Wait, why are you so convinced that last year is the "outlier" and not the year before?

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How about both and he's a 3.5 WAR pitcher going forward?

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Team Theo.

I am not at all, I actually really like Garza, and definitely think he's closer to 5 wins than 1.6. I just don't know if he's more likely to be a 5 win pitcher or a 3 win pitcher this year though. My feeling is he's somewhere in the middle of those two, so around a 4 win pitcher and if he is then his value still COULD go down. I just feel like there is a lot of risk because I don't think it's very likely his value goes up any further. He could improve, I just don't like the chances and think there is a greater chance of regression.

I don't want to be seen as a Garza basher, because I am a huge fan of his. He's got great stuff and numbers to back it up. Highest average fast ball velocity in the NL last year, 7th in K/9, 5th in FIP, 8th in xFIP. The guy clearly pitched great last year and if we were contending I'd love to slot him in at or near the top of the rotation, but while we are trying to maximize our assets I'd like to trade him at his value's peak. He will net the biggest return of the guys who could be traded so I just hope Theo plays this hand right. He has been great so far so I will trust him, but it just makes me nervous.


If Garza pitches really well until the trade deadline, would we get more for him then than now? If we would, how much more?

Probably.

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What it comes down to is who needs pitching and how badly. If a team is just looking for another front end guy for the stretch, we'd probably get about the same as we'd get now. If there are several teams with the same thing in mind, then perhaps we can get more. Of course, by then there could also be other options on the market that arent curently available.

If a contending team loses one of their starters, especially a front ender, that's when we might be able to get the kind of package that Theo's reportedly been looking for.

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Chicago Club has gone back on us. Please Send Expenses. Am Broke

anthony rizzo tweeted he'll be wearing #44

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